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Those Who Listen Will Live: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast the First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On this podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
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to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
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what God is doing in us and in our community.
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This fall, we're living in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
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and John and learning how to live from our model, Jesus.
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This sermon is part of our series The Gospels.
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You can find out more information about our church at
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fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for listening.
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This morning scripture is from the Gospel of John chapter 5,
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starting verse 16. So the Jewish leaders began
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harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules.
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But Jesus replied, My Father is always working, and so am I.
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So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill
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him. For he not only broke the
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Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself
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equal with God. So Jesus explained, I tell you
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the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself.
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He does only what he sees the Father doing.
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Whatever the Father does, the Son does, also does.
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For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is
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doing. In fact, the Father will show
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him how to do even greater works than healing this man.
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Then you will truly be astonished.
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For just as the Father gives life to those he raises from the
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dead, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants.
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In addition, the Father judges no one.
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Instead, he has given the Son absolute authority to judge so
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that everyone will honour the Son just as they honour the
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Father. Anyone who does not honour the
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Son is certainly not honouring the Father who sent him.
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I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe
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in God who sent me have eternal life.
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They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have
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already passed from death into life, and I assure you that the
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time is coming. Indeed, it's here now when the
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dead will hear my voice, the voice of the Son of God, and
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those who listen will live. The Father has life in himself,
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and He has granted that same life, giving power to His Son,
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and He has given Him authority to judge everyone because He is
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the Son of Man. Don't be so surprised.
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Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves
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will hear the voice of God's Son, and they will rise again.
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Those who have done goodwill rise to experience eternal life,
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and those who have continued in the evil will rise to experience
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judgment. I can do nothing on my own.
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I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just
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because I carry out the will of the One who sent me, not my own
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will. This is the word of God for the
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people of God. Thanks be to God, Amen.
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We're going to keep talking about John's Gospel.
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All right, we, we started last week in John chapter 2 and, and
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after the cleansing of the temple that we spoke last week,
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we see one of the religious leaders, right?
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If we're working our way through John, we see one of the
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religious leaders, A Pharisee, a man by the name of Nicodemus.
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He comes to Jesus at night, right, to avoid people seeing
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him talking to Jesus, right? He, he wants to go and talk to
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Jesus. He's seen what Jesus is doing.
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He's, he's actually coming to believe that Jesus has been sent
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by God. And Nicodemus has questions, but
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he doesn't want anybody to know he has questions for Jesus.
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So he goes to Jesus and I then, then Jesus and the disciples
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say, leave Jerusalem. They go out into the Judean
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wilderness near the place where John the Baptist has been
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baptizing people. And and John the Baptist at this
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point is very clear with his followers that he is not the
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Messiah. And he points them to Jesus
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right, even identifying him as the Son of God.
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They spend some time there, and after some days, Jesus and the
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disciples, they begin their journey back up to Galilee.
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But rather than than taking the road more travelled, Jesus bucks
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against the Jewish tradition of avoiding the whole region of
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Samaria. And instead he walks right
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through it. During that journey that he sits
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down at Jacob's well one day and and he has that famous
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conversation with the Samaritan woman which leads not just to
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that woman coming to believe in Jesus, but her whole village
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believed because of her testimony.
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Jesus then returns to Galilee, where people were all abuzz
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about the things that they had seen Jesus doing in Jerusalem
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around the Passover celebration. And there's a certain government
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official, right, who, who probably worked for King Herod.
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He, he lived in a bigger town just over from where Jesus was.
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And he came to Jesus begging for Jesus to come and heal his son
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before he died without ever leaving the village where he was
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to go to Capernaum where the boy was.
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Jesus heals the boy and he lives.
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And it's after this episode in the life and ministry of Jesus
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that John has Jesus returning to Jerusalem for another festival
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celebration, right? Doesn't specifically say which
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one, but, but Pentecost would make sense, right?
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As as one of the three pilgrimage festivals that that
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Jewish people were expected to go down to Jerusalem and and
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being less than two months after Passover, time wise, it kind of
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makes some sense, right? And that that two-month period,
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it's just like the church still celebrates Pentecost 50 days
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after Easter, right? So Jesus is in Jerusalem for the
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festival. He's in the city and on the
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Sabbath, and Jesus heals a man, a man who is lame.
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He couldn't walk. He tells him to get up, pick up
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his mat that he was lying on, and walk.
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When the Jewish leaders heard about it, they objected to the
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healing, not because they thought the healing was wrong,
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but because it happened on the Sabbath, right?
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They, they, they have some tension about that.
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The 7th day of each week, it was the Sabbath.
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It was set aside as a 2 fold memorial for God's people,
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right? One, because God rested from his
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work of creation on the 7th day. If you go back to Genesis, you,
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you can read that story. God did all of his creating work
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in six days and on the 7th day he rested.
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But secondly, all right, the the book of Deuteronomy tells us
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they were supposed to remember the Sabbath because their
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ancestors had been slaves in Egypt.
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They had never been given a day of rest.
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So the Sabbath was to be a day of rest, the day set aside, a
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day when no work was to be done. And so to protect people from
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breaking the Sabbath or God gave some very specific illustrations
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of what constituted work and what didn't, right.
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You're allowed to let your animals out of their pens so
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they could go and, and drink some water, but you weren't
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allowed to lead them out to pasture, those kind of things.
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But then, as we tend to do, the religious leaders wanted to make
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sure that no one accidentally broke the Sabbath, right,
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because it was breaking the covenant that led to the
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destruction of the temple and the exile for the people of
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Judah. And so the religious leaders
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made even more laws about what you could or couldn't do on the
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Sabbath, which included, you know, how far you could walk on
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the Sabbath before it became walk, before it became work.
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And things like carrying a map, carrying your bedroll couldn't
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do it. So this healing of this lame
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man, it, it brought Jesus into further conflict with the Jewish
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leaders. It had begun with the clearing
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of the temple, but now it was escalating even more.
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And then that's where our story finds us this morning.
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After this healing of the lame man, the Jewish leaders begin
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harassing Jesus. Some translations say
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persecuting Jesus, they're not happy because he's breaking the
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rules. The rules about what you could
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and couldn't do on the Sabbath. You know, part of what makes
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good religious people is that they like rules, right?
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They like feeling like they can understand the expectations.
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They know what's allowed. They know what's not allowed.
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They want to know whether they're on the inside or on the
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outside. And behavior based rules provide
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a nice little checklist to be able to know where you stand
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right now. I don't want to oversimplify the
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the motivations of of good religious people, but I hope you
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can see that this isn't just a Pharisee kind of thing right
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there. There are plenty of people today
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who are good church people. There's a temptation even today
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as we try to follow Jesus, to make our faith in God about
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behavior. Because it's easy to measure
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behaviors, or at least it's easier to measure behaviors than
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it is to measure what's happening in someone's heart.
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Now the ditch on the other side of that road is to make our
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faith in God all about beliefs, right?
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The the things we give mental assent to where we can measure
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where we or others believe the right things regardless of how
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we actually live day-to-day. The old holiness movement people
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summed up this kind of behavior based approach to discipleship
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like this. They'd say, I don't dance,
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drink, cuss or chew, and I don't run around with those who do.
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Right now, I don't know that anyone actually said that, but
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it was true enough that it became a say.
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And there's something appealing about that, right about that
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because it makes things black and white.
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Either you do or you don't. But at least part of what Jesus
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is wanting to show to the religious leaders, I think here
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in this story especially, it is that faith in God isn't
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primarily about the things we do or don't do right.
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It's not primarily about our behaviors.
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Our faith in God is primarily about the relationship we have
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with God. But that makes it a lot harder
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to judge. So Jesus's response to these
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leaders objections is that he isn't doing anything wrong
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because he's merely acting as an apprentice to his Father's work,
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right? And since God is always working,
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so is Jesus. But 1st century Jewish thought
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said that even though God modelled Sabbath rest from his
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creative work, God never actually stops working right?
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Because after creation, God's God's work is sustaining and
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governing all that he created. And so the need to observe
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Sabbath was actually one of the distinctions between God and
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humanity. It's this response that makes
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the leaders want to find a way to kill Jesus all the more,
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right? It wasn't just that Jesus was
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breaking the Sabbath and saying that he didn't have to follow
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their rules about the Sabbath. He was claiming to be God,
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right? He called God his Father.
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He wasn't just breaking the covenant.
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This was now blasphemy, and blasphemy deserved death.
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So Jesus tries to explain this all to the Jewish leaders.
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He begins by expanding on this idea of being an apprentice to
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his father, right? An idea that they all would have
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been intimately familiar with. It was the standard expectation
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that sons would follow their fathers into the family
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business, right? They'd learn the trade, whether
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it was baking or farming or even being a priest.
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Aren't you boys glad you have some choices these days?
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I'm looking at my four boys right here across the front.
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But they'd learn those, those trades, those professions by
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watching their fathers work day after day until they learned
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enough to help. And eventually they they would
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have shown a level of skill to where they would be doing the
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work. And the father would just give
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some help or correction or instruction along the way until
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they had mastered the skills of the trade.
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And this, this is the kind of relationship that Jesus is
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claiming with his Father God. Jesus said he wasn't doing
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anything on his own accord. He was simply doing what he saw
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the Father doing. In the case of this man, Jesus
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just gave him back his life because he saw God as the one
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who gives life even on the Sabbath.
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So as the story goes on in verse 20, Jesus explains that that
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this this showing and this seeing what what I think we
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could rightly call revelation, right?
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It was an expression, it was in the context of the love and
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intimacy shared between the Father and the Son Jesus.
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His own expectation was that God was going to show him even more
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how to do even more than he was already doing truly amazing and
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astonishing things. As if telling someone to get up
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and walk wasn't astonishing in and of itself.
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Right. But it's, it's almost like Jesus
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said, Oh, you're, you're amazed by this, by me telling a man to
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pick up his mat and walk. Just wait, you ain't seen
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nothing yet. And then it's in verse 21 that
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we see what I think is one of the keys to how Jesus saw his
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ministry. It says for justice, the Father
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gives life to those he raises from the dead.
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So the Son gives life to anyone he wants, right?
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If God the Father is in the business of giving life where
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there was no life even to those who were dead, then that's the
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same kind of work the Son was going to do.
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It's like when Jesus contrasted his work and the work of the
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devil in John 1010, when he said the thief comes only to steal
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and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life
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and have it abundantly right. Jesus came part of the the the
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main reason he came was so that people couldn't have and know
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abundant life. And in this passage, Jesus is
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promising that those who would listen to his message and
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believe that God is the one who sent him, they would have this
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eternal life he was talking about.
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This is the authority that the Father had bestowed on the Son,
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the authority to give life, the authority to judge.
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And and with that authority to judge, Jesus is either able to
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condemn people to continue death or raise them up to new life.
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Because you see, as part of fallen humanity, we're already
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dead, right? Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter
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2 first 3 verses. He said once you were dead
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because of your disobedience and your many sins, you used to live
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in sin just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil, the
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commander of the powers in the unseen world.
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He is the Spirit at work in the hearts of those who refused to
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obey God. God, all of us used to live that
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way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our
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sinful nature. By our very nature, we were
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subject to God's wrath, His anger, just like everyone else,
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right? Because apart from Jesus, when
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we live according to the way of the world, when we are ruled by
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the lusts of our sinful nature, we are already dead.
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I think this is something we sometimes miss, right?
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We hear people raise objections to Christianity saying, well,
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how could a loving God condemn people to eternal death?
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The reality is, we're already dead.
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It's God, in his rich mercy and love, who made a way through the
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sun for us to have life. God could have just left us in
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that sinful state, condemned to death without hope in this
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world. But he didn't.
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He didn't. He came for us.
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He invites us to be raised from death to new life, not just in
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some future eternity that we enter into upon our physical
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death, but now, here in this world, in this life.
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Jesus offers us a new way to live.
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Eternal life begins. When we hear his voice and we
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listen to his message and we put our trust in Jesus, that's the
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authority that the Father has given to the to Jesus, to the
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Son. Verse 26 it says the Father has
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life in himself and has granted that same life giving power to
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his Son. More or less the same as that
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version. This is the life and
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relationship that through Jesus we have been invited into,
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right? Because while we will never be
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the Son of God in the same way that Jesus was the eternal Son
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of God, like we said in the Nicene Creed, light from light,
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true God from true God, begotten, not made, but in the
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work of Christ, we have been adopted into the family of God,
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right? We've been made sons and
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daughters of God. And by adoption, then we've been
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brought into the family business too.
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We've been entrusted with a measure of authority and a
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responsibility of bringing life to dead people.
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In John 20 and Matthew 18 and Mark 11, we read that Jesus gave
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his followers authority to bind things and loose things, to free
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things, to forgive sins and help people find life.
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But if we expect to be able to do the things that Jesus did to
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demonstrate that authority, we also have to learn to do the
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things that Jesus did to develop the intimacy with the Father
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that was the very source of all of that which supported
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everything that Jesus did. Jesus said he only did what he
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saw the Father doing. He did nothing on his own
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accord. He only did what the Father told
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him to do. Jesus learned what the Father
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wanted him to do, not just by doing the right things or by
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believing the right things. He learned them by being in this
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right relationship with God, with the Father.
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Jesus had a rhythm of life that supported this intimacy he had
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with the Father right. His times of of fasting and
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solitude and silence and prayer. His practices of reading and
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meditating on scripture, of worshipping together in
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community on the Sabbath. These practices and and others
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that they created the space for the Father to apprentice Jesus
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in the work of bringing life. So when we say that we want to
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be used by God, but we don't put ourselves in the position to be
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led by God, we don't put ourselves in the position to be
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taught by God, apprenticed by God.
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We're not serious about a relationship with God, we just
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want the power of God without the surrender to God that we see
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in the life of Jesus. The religious leaders were upset
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because they felt like Jesus was making himself equal with God.
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The reality is that Jesus never felt that his equality with God
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was something to be grasped, something to be held on to and
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used for his own benefit. Jesus says equality with God
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never meant for him. Independence from God or Jesus
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lived in complete surrender to the Father, even though the
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Father had bestowed all authority to him.
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And so I think before we get to the end of this series in the
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Gospels, which isn't this week but it's next week, this series
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in which we've been looking at what we learn from Jesus's life,
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about what it means to live like him.
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I think we have to get honest with ourselves about where we
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are with Jesus. Maybe this morning or or
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somewhere over the course of this series, you realize that
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you you thought you were following Jesus, but you've
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never actually received this gift of life that he offers.
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You can do that this morning. You can confess to Jesus that
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that you have still been living according to the ways of this
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world, but now you've heard his voice and you believe that God
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sent him and that he is the source of life.
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And if that's you this morning, God longs to raise you from
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death to life. He can do that this morning.
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But maybe this morning or over the course of this series
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somewhere, as we've heard these stories about Jesus and his
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interactions with these Jewish leaders, maybe you've realized
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that you thought you were following Jesus, but you've
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actually been living as a good church person, a good religious
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person. You haven't really known the
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kind of intimacy with God which leads to abundant life that
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Jesus talks about. You can acknowledge that this
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morning to Jesus. You can decide to to turn toward
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him, to lean into him, to lean the full weight of of your being
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on him, trusting that he will receive you with open arms as a
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son or daughter. But maybe this morning or
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somewhere over the course of the series, you've heard the stories
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of Jesus, our example of of what is possible in a human life,
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surrendered to the Father and empowered by the Spirit.
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And it's stirred a longing in your heart, a longing for for
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that to be true in your own life, that you long to see more
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of what God is able to do in and through your own life.
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Friends, he's a good father and I think he longs to give us
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those gifts. He he wants that intimacy, too.
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He wants to show you, to reveal to you where he's working, what
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he's doing, and how he wants to use you to bring the dead to
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life. I think he's waiting for you to
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ask. He wants you to ask and he wants
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to teach you to apprentice you to, to show you how to do it.
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So if this morning you sense God speaking to you, don't miss him.
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Don't worry what other people might think.
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Don't second guess whether or not you're you're really hearing
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from him. Remember, Jesus said those who
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listen will live. He's offering life, abundant
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life this morning. So if he's speaking to you this
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morning, respond the altar. It isn't magical.
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God doesn't live at this wooden rail somehow more than he does
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anywhere else. But there is something about
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responding with everything that you are, Not just your mind, not
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just your heart, not just your spirit, but joining even your
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body into your response to what God is doing.
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If He's speaking to you, come meet him this morning at the
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altar, or stand where you are, or turn around and make your Pew
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an altar. But let's not miss His voice
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this morning because He's speaking and if we'll listen, we
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will find that life that He's talking about that is truly
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life. Would you pray with me this
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morning? Jesus?
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We are so grateful that you are the God of life and that your
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offer to us isn't just more rules and regulations and
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obligations. Your offer to us is intimacy and
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life. You want to adopt us into your
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family, to make us sons and daughters of God to to bring us
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into the family business of bringing life to dead places.
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Jesus, would you speak to us this morning?
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Would you wake us up to what you're doing?
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Would you call us deeper into the reality of who you are and
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who you long for us to be? We pray this Jesus in your name
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and for your sake.